A Favor for Thieves
by jtm1848
Summary: Spruce the Younger does a favor for the Scarzni...


**A Favor for Thieves**

_You have got to be kidding me, _Spruce thought as he looked about his surroundings the following morning. It was barely sunrise, and he found himself in a seedier corner of the Bazaar of Sails, outside a curio shop named The Pickled Imp. He was to meet the proprietor, a man named Guaril Karela, to perform an as-yet-unknown deed for the local Scarzni.

_Thieves,_ Spruce thought with disgust. _Why thieves?_

Spruce pushed open the door to the creepy shop and entered. Taking a moment to look around, he found himself surprised by the myriad odds and ends that cluttered the small store; he barely recognized a row of knock-off Thuvian burial urns and supposed Azlanti porcelain; many pieces of the assorted collection were unrecognizable, and seemed to have no discernable use. The store was thick with rows of jars lined up on dusty wooden shelves. Inside the jars were malformed creatures and creature parts, and a tiny fetal devil centered the lineup. Upon seeing the devil, Spruce grunted silently; he hadn't expected the name of the curio shop to be so literally descriptive.

"Hallo!" A voice carried from the back of the store, and a thin, greasy-haired Varisian man stepped out from hiding in one cluttered corner; he glanced around, as if to be absolutely certain that no customers were in the store.

"Well met," he said again, stepping forward to greet Spruce; the man's face seemed to be stuck in perpetual sneer. "I am Guaril Karela. I run this fine establishment." His reedy mustache twitched as he spoke, almost like the hands of an animated clock.

Spruce calmly elected to not shake hands. "My name is Spruce the Younger," he stated, realizing that he was far from the average purveyor of the curio shop. "A—common friend asked me to assist you this morning."

"Ah, Amara!" Guaril's eyes lit up. "She always comes through for me, and I always come through for her," he added, almost conspiratorially. "My associates and I often perform certain...tasks for Amara, getting items in and out of ports, across borders, and so forth."

_I didn't ask_. Spruce knew better than to state his feelings aloud; as much as he disliked doing a favor for thieves, he understood that the Scarzni had certain uses. Amara had explained the night before that Guaril was, perhaps, the best-connected man in Magnimar; located at the heart of the bustling city, Guaril was ideally situated to keep his eyes on the harbors, and knew all of the hidden points of commerce.

"You see," Guaril went on, "A friend of mine has a warehouse near here. A few days ago, he received a parcel on behalf of me and some of my associates, but there's a problem."

"A problem," Spruce echoed.

"Yes…see, Master Gelbane had to leave town in a hurry, and our shipment is still waiting at his warehouse."

"You want me to get a shipment from a warehouse?" Spruce interjected doubtfully. It didn't seem like much of a task…

Guaril twitched his mustache again. "There might be a complication or two," the proprietor allowed. "Rumor has it that Master Gelbane ended up in some trouble with the law, and the warehouse may have been seized. Not by the authorities, mind you—by some common thieves. I heard tell from someone down at the docks that a couple creeps were snooping around the warehouse just the other night."

"What's the shipment?" Spruce asked, doing his best to ignore the mustache.

"Master Gelbane keeps all sorts of things there, mostly junk," Guaril continued. He paused, as if he had heard a noise, but went on after a lengthy moment. "Everything from beer to nails. It's an excellent place to disguise something really special.

"The target is a big crate. It's marked with three crows arranged in a triangle." Guaril paused again and lowered his voice. "Inside that crate is a small container with a few books and papers in it. That's the only parcel I'm interested in."

"What about the rest of it?" Spruce asked, taking care to keep his voice low as well.

"As far as I'm concerned," Guaril replied, "you can help yourself to the rest of the crate. Honestly, anything else you want in the place too. It's just cover, and I'm sure the city guards will eventually seize it anyway."

…

By half past the morning bells, Spruce found himself at the start of a long pier, one of many that stretched their way around the harbor, breathing a silent thank you for the uncharacteristic fog that had settled in the bay. Even here, from his vantage point, Spruce could scarcely see the rickety wooden structure sitting at the end of the pier; all the better, he thought, for conducting a clandestine errand such as his.

It was a typically unremarkable structure, at that; known in the vernacular as a pelican warehouse, it was little more than an aging, decrepit shed, listing in an advanced state of disrepair. Beaten by storms and salt, pelican warehouses were a dying breed in the harbor of Magnimar. Once common, they were used to allow ships to load and unload farther out from the bustling docks; but certain traders had found a method of using the distant storage sheds to evade transit taxes. In the face of a crackdown by the city guards, many traders eschewed their use and many owners declaimed ownership outright. Heavily neglected and long since abandoned, many of the warehouses had fallen into the hands of squatters or smugglers—or into the bay itself.

Spruce made his way down the pier, his armor wrapped in a nondescript gray cloak that faded into the encompassing fog, pausing only briefly to nod a proper acknowledgement to the assorted local fishermen perched along the edge; even in the chilly fog, a handful were out, casting nets and bobbing lines into the waters below. Hopefully, his passage down the pier would raise no eyebrows, nor trigger any memories.

Stretching some hundred feet (or so) from the boardwalk, running about fifteen feet above the water, the pier was made of weathered but sturdy planks; and at the end, nearly hanging into the water, was the old warehouse itself. The building, tattered and in disrepair, seemed to struggle against the weight of its own roof; the windows were darkened and dirty, providing no view into the building. The only remaining item of note, Spruce saw, was a small boat bobbing in the water beneath the warehouse, tethered to the pier by a stout, salt-encrusted rope.

The door itself, Spruce saw, was a thick, wooden affair, artificially weathered to match the rest of the decrepit building; but it was sturdy and strong, and locked from the inside. Although not expecting the door to open easily, Spruce gave it an experimental shove with his armored shoulder; and the door barely moved, as it was fastened securely in place.

Spruce frowned once and stepped back, looking around for any other plausible means of ingress, when the faintest of glimmers caught his eye in the planks of the pier. Bending over, he reached for it.

It was a shiny iron key, wedged between two planks! With no signs of salty corrosion, it looked brand new, and had likely been used recently. It was the first sign—and a good sign—that the warehouse was still operational.

Even with the key, it took a forceful shove to open the heavy doors; and as Spruce stepped inside the shack, he was immediately enveloped by suffocating darkness. No light—and in the fog, there was little light to spare—streamed in through the filthy, oily film on the sparse collection of windows; only a sliver of light shone in through a hole in the floor, and that was a dusky affair of dim light reflected off gray, brackish water.

Taking a moment to light a torch before continuing, Spruce quickly took stock of the warehouse. It was a minor affair, of maybe thirty feet by thirty feet; mismatched crates, boxes, and barrels leaned against each other in vaguely sorted stacks. Sniffing the air, he could tell that some of the contents were clearly spoiled foodstuffs.

The most notable thing, Spruce realized, was the hole in the floor; as large as a man, several rickety planks teetered into the openness. On one of the planks, perched square in the center of the hole, was a large, wooden crate stamped with three crows arranged in a triangle.

Spruce tested the planks, but couldn't get nearly close enough to reach the box without risking collapsing the floor further—and spilling the crate into the water. _I'll have to improvise,_ he realized.

With his torch held high, illuminating the warehouse, Spruce started rifling through the contents, searching for any tools that could assist him. It was a motley collection, mostly of nothingness. Starting by the door on the west wall, he found several kegs of beer and smaller crates of food, in various stages of freshness; across from there, on the east side, was a stack of simple, wooden coffins. The rest of the crates—and Spruce mentally catalogued the contents as he went—contained blocks of clay, coffee, coils of rope, dried fish, lead ingots, nails, nets, raw cotton, rough wool, spare sails, various pulleys and tools, and cheap weapons.

His rough search alarmed the occupants of the shed.

Spruce yanked Firesbane from its sheath the moment he heard the skittering sounds of dire rats coming from behind a stack of crates. Intent on defending their home, the three oversized rodents charged the young man with ferocity.

Spruce swung his longsword at the leader of the pack, scoring it across the snout; it was a minor wound, but the rat screeched in pain as the skin around the sliced flesh instantly froze and cracked, the effect of the heat-absorbing magical blade of Firesbane. The rat fell back, clawing at its nose, as the remaining two advanced.

Spruce swung again, this time without aim as the rats drew too close. It was enough to send one scurrying back, with the blade slashing inches in front of the dire creature; but the other rat, not assailed by the weapon, drew to close and chomped down on Spruce's ankle. The rat's teeth sank in the hardened leather boot, descending far enough to puncture the skin beneath.

Spruce kicked out, seeking to throw the rodent off his leg; and the rat, losing its grip, went flying into a stack of crates. Stunned, it was momentarily out of the battle, but Spruce had no opportunity to pursue it; for the first rat, driven mad by the stinging pain of frozen bolts in its snout, was bearing down on him. With a scarce second's advantage over the hard-charging rodent, Spruce jumped to one side and brought the tip of his blade stabbing downward, slicing its way into the dire rat's skull. He hung on tightly, even as the creature convulsed, sending blood and gray matter onto Spruce's cloak; and within moments, the rat lay still.

The third dire rat, holding back, chose that moment to run and leap onto Spruce's chest, and the two fell onto the ground in a pile. His sword still stuck in the first rat, Spruce lost his handle on it; and with the weight of the third rat holding him down, Spruce's only option was to frantically draw his masterwork dagger from his belt.

As he moved his head from side to side, dodging the rodent's attempts to bite his face, Spruce stabbed upward into the belly of the rat; and withdrawing his blade, he stabbed again, and a third time. Finally, with the creature screaming its death throes, Spruce was able to bundle his legs beneath it and, straightening them quickly, throw the rat clear of his own body.

One was left—and even as Spruce was clambering to his feet, that rat, momentarily stunned from its collision with a stack of crates, was eyeing him doubtfully. _This is it,_ Spruce decided; and, steadying his blade, he charged, bringing FIresbane downward in a great hacking motion. At the last moment, as the young man closed in, the dire rat tried to skitter away, but it had waited too long; and the sword sliced through the oversized creature, bringing it instant death.

Spruce let out a heavy breath as he stepped back and turned around slowly, turning his attention back to the crate in the center of the room. There was a way to get it, he knew, and it was just a matter of figuring out _how…_

There was rope in one of the storage crates.

_What about a hook?_

Spruce went into a flurry of motion as he dove deep into the boxes, searching for anything that could serve as a hook; and within a minute, he emerged triumphantly with a hook-shaped hand tool. It took only another minute to tie one end of a coil of rope to the hook.

Taking a deep breath, Spruce gently lobbed the weighted end of the rope towards the crate, teetering delicately as it was on the battered planks. The hook hit the target, but missed the gold as it came up left of the handle on the near side of the crate. Spruce cringed slightly as he held his breath, fearful that the blow would be enough to send the wooden box into the dark waters below.

The crate didn't fall, and Spruce let his breath out in relief. Carefully retrieving the hooked end of the rope—dragging it across the beaten wooden planks, the hook was liable to get caught—he poised himself again and lofted the tool towards the crate, wondering momentarily if there was a better way of achieving his goal.

The hook caught on the crate's handle.

Spruce gave the rope an experimental tug, testing the firmness of its grip, but the hook held strong; and, pulling hand over hand, the young man eased the crate towards him. The planks beneath the heavy box creaked and groaned, but only once did they threaten to give way; and, nearly before he knew it, Spruce had the crate pulled to safety.

_Next step, _Spruce reflected as he pushed sweaty hair back from his brow; Guaril didn't want nor need the entire crate, and Spruce had no convenient means of lugging the heavy container clear back to The Pickled Imp. Quickly locating a crowbar, he cracked open the lid.

Inside the rescued crate, just as the curio dealer had described, Spruce found a smaller mahogany box; checking inside, he found five books and a few sheets of loose paper held together in a leather folio. The titles and subjects seem completely unrelated to each other: _Practical Thaumaturgy In Accordance with Creation, Geographic Anomalies of the Inner Sea, Under Kaer Maga: A Trial and Travel, Physiology of Dragons: An Illustrated Reference, _and _Lost Sarusan. _The leather folder contained cargo manifestos, warehouse inventories, and other financial logs from a dozen different merchant houses and trade guilds.

…

Guaril was definitely pleased when Spruce returned to The Pickled Imp, the small, mahogany box carefully in hand. "You have done me quite the service," the Scarzni agent said, nearly beaming beneath his twitching mustache. "Perhaps we can be of each other's service again…"


End file.
